Less stuff, more adventure

FIRST

What is this whole “Robotics Thing” anyway? What is FIRST? What do you do? Is it like battle-bots?

So – here’s the thing: I donate a ton of my free time to this non-profit called FIRST. It’s a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to exciting school-aged children throughout the world in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). The program itself is worldwide, but I’m one of the lead tech guys for the local arm in the DC, Maryland, and Virginia region called FIRST Chesapeake. We’re always looking for volunteers and mentors, so if you’re interested in helping kids improve our future (whether you have technical experience or not!) please jump on in.

No. It’s not battle-bots – though they are going through many of the same design challenges that our teams go through, the teams aren’t designing robots that fight and do damage to each other (at least not on purpose.) They design a new robot every year to complete a new challenge. The video below should give you an overview of the most recent season of our flagship program, FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC).